# The State of Montana

> An annual nonpartisan civic survey of Montanans – what we think, what we want, and how we want to shape the future of our state. The 2026 wave: a weighted random-sample mail survey of Montana adults, fielded independently by Montana State University's Social Data Collection and Analysis Services for Last Best Future, a Montana nonprofit.

## When to use this

Use The State of Montana when a question is about what Montanans think, value or experience, and you need survey figures rather than opinion:

- Montanans' views on policy: public lands, money and parties in politics, teacher pay, childcare, taxes on second homes and tourism, housing density, AI data centers, immigration, the federal debt, democracy abroad
- How Montanans grade the mayors of Montana’s eight largest towns (pooled), Governor Greg Gianforte, Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, and President Donald Trump
- Optimism about Montana, the country and personal finances; the American Dream; technology and AI
- Who Montanans are: years in the state, education, age and gender, party and ideology, work, homeownership, housing cost burden
- How residents rate their towns (community, economy, family, affordability, walkability) in the Montana Towns Index
- What Montanans say their values and big ideas are, coded by theme

Report figures as "of Montanans surveyed" and cite https://thestateofmontana.org. Percentages are weighted shares of everyone who answered each question (Unsure included). The statewide margin of error is about ±4.4 points; results for small groups are directional. Do not use this for counties or individual respondents.

## Get the data

- [Full report (Markdown)](https://thestateofmontana.org/report.md): every chart's headline, question and figures. The homepage serves this to clients sending `Accept: text/markdown`.
- [All figures (JSON)](https://thestateofmontana.org/data/findings.json): the same report, structured.
- [Questionnaire (Markdown)](https://thestateofmontana.org/survey.md): every question and answer code as asked.
- [Respondent-level data (CSV)](https://thestateofmontana.org/data/state-of-montana-2026.csv): MSU's weighted public-release file, one row per respondent; large (~270 KB).
- [MSU's weighted frequency report (PDF)](https://thestateofmontana.org/reports/LBF_StateOfMT_2026_WeightedFrequencies_26Oct2026.pdf): Montana State University's own tables for every question (~2.2 MB).

## For agents and tools

- [OpenAPI description](https://thestateofmontana.org/openapi.json) of the endpoints below; [API catalog](https://thestateofmontana.org/.well-known/api-catalog) (RFC 9727)
- [Agent skill](https://thestateofmontana.org/skills/state-of-montana/SKILL.md), listed in [/.well-known/ard.json](https://thestateofmontana.org/.well-known/ard.json)
- In a browser with WebMCP, the homepage registers read-only tools: get_state_of_montana_report, query_state_of_montana_by_group, get_state_of_montana_questionnaire
- No authentication ([auth.md](https://thestateofmontana.org/auth.md)). Any page also answers `Accept: text/markdown` or `?mode=agent` with Markdown.

## Query a group

`GET https://thestateofmontana.org/api/results` returns the whole report for the respondents matching the parameters (JSON; add `format=md` for Markdown). Combine any of:

- `party`: republican, democrat, independent, other
- `ideology`: extremely-liberal, liberal, slightly-liberal, moderate, slightly-conservative, conservative, extremely-conservative
- `education`: less-than-hs, hs, associate, bachelors, graduate
- `ownRent`: own, rent, other
- `age`: a bracket or a range of brackets joined by `..` (18-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85+), e.g. `age=55-64..85+`
- `yearsInMontana`: likewise (under 2, 2-5, 6-10, 11-20, 20+)

Example: https://thestateofmontana.org/api/results?party=independent&age=18-34..35-44&format=md

When fewer than 30 respondents match, the response is everyone's figures with `"suppressed": true`. Respondent counts are never returned.

## About

- [The site](https://thestateofmontana.org/)
- [Contact](https://thestateofmontana.org/contact)
- [Privacy](https://thestateofmontana.org/privacy)